Strengthening relationships of trust with business departments thanks to AirSaaS - Indexia Group

Four months after the start of deployment of AirSaaS, the time of First usage report arrived for Sylvain Bourdette. Indexia Groupe's constantly evolving CIO comes back with us to the challenges he has faced and the various solutions provided.

Passionate about climbing, this DSI of a group of 3,000 people based in Roman sur Isère was the first of Cordée on this implementation of a project portfolio tool modern.

Before/After AirSaaS?

Before the implementation of AirSaaS, An excel table listed the 80 existing projects within the DSI.
Problem: Due to the existence of many small projects, the addition of data, the file quickly became impractical. The addition of data gradually made the tool obsolete. In addition, project prioritization meetings with business lines were more and more difficult to organize because they were partly based on this Excel follow-up file.

A context of hypergrowth and transformation

Indexia has historically been an affinity insurer that has become a service operator and a “retailer”. Its key figures tell the story of the transformation: 3,000 employees, eight million customers, 2,500 partners and an estimated turnover of €1.26 billion in 2022.
Since its launch in September 2020, their brand Hubside.Store, a specialist in new and refurbished multimedia, has already opened 120 points of sale. Exponential growth that allowed him to join the prestigious French Tech 120 promotion.

The challenge: as CIO, to have a clear and up-to-date status of the various projects

“When you have 80 projects in parallel, you need to have synthetic views. To have the right information immediately, To know what will go into production in the current month”.

With a lot of small projects that may have to drag on for a long time, the tracking chart used previously had become unsuitable.

“We wanted to have more and more information so we added more and more columns, statuses, weather dates, and comments... and in the end... it became illegible, unusable” confides Sylvain Bourdette.

When the CIO was looking to establish a progress report, it was indeed necessary Make filters in one direction, in the other, copy and paste To put the information in a PowerPoint

”We spent square hours there”! recalls Sylvain, “For a result where the file was never completely up to date or with the right status”. #CQFD

The solution: More than a reporting tool, a tool focused on value and adopted by project managers!

”The challenge of having a clear and up-to-date status of projects is completely fulfilled with airSAA.s!” underlines Sylvain Bourdette from the start.

”Where or before, project managers could see updating the Excel file as a burden that did not bring them anything. Now, the fact of having put AirSaaS has given them a tool adapted and used on a daily basis.”

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More than a reporting use, AirSaaS has become a project management tool within Indexia's IT Department focused on value. Project managers can in fact centralize their notes and documents there, record the decisions to be taken and the milestones of each project. ”They know where they are.” For Sylvain, this made it possible to involve project managers in the process, which was one of the objectives.

Animate portfolio reviews differently

So far theFacilitating prioritization meetings of projects with business departments was quite difficult to organize because we had to rely on this famous excel file that had become unsuitable.

The fact that we now have AirSaaS andHave views by direction, allows you to filter and see all the projects at once. Another significant point was noticed by Sylvain.”It also made it possible to put business departments in front of them. in a clear way, theall the other projects in progress in parallel”. To better understand the overall planning of the IT department. In the excel file, users did not see this concurrency of all the projects at the same time, of their milestones.

”This allows us to better share the reality of our profession. We have a certain capacity to carry out projects, we are already in the process of carrying out three and we cannot do more. This point contributes to a prioritization meeting. Because it's visual, it's factual.”

It even makes it possible to recall certain projects in the backlog, which the trades themselves had forgotten... The tool itself, don't forget :-).

It's all right in the sense of better transparency with the trades. One of the key values practiced by this “business partner” DSI.

For Sylvain the success of the projects is done above all because we have a relationship of trust with the professions. ”We cannot have a customer-supplier relationship, in case of a problem, we will look for solutions together rather than culprits.”.

Save time and strengthen the relationship of trust with the professions

Today, after only a few months of implementation, AirSaaS is in the process of getting started at the IT department level. The next phase is toopen to certain business users who are the biggest applicants for projects.

The aim is for them to use it. The idea is to have more factual exchanges. According to him, in the long run”The fact that everyone can contribute and put points of attention and decisions into AirSaaS is a key factor in limiting the excess of emails and meetings.He is convinced that “it will save us time.”

He underlines that this is in the interest of both IT and jobs. For the IT department to be able to log events at any time. And for businesses to have a real-time planning vision. And no Not “manipulated” reporting”.

For Sylvain, he is It is essential that business managers know where to find information On the follow-up of requests. Knowing that they are available to them can contribute to strengthening the relationship of trust with the IT department. And that's regardless of whether they go see it or not. They know that in case of need... the info is there!

Bonus section:

The strong point of AirSaaS?

If he were to present it to a DSI friend, Sylvain would mention:”The fact of being able to generate, in one click, the steering committee management PowerPoint, it's magic !”

As a long-time project expert, our CIO underlines this:”In terms of project management, we all tried MS Project one day! And MS Project is too complicated these days!”.

When asked about the uniqueness of the solution, our interlocutor specifies:”AirSaaS is different from other products. CIt is a tool for reporting and healthy management. With project management that is a little bit “looser” and focus on the important points, which are the decisions and the points of attention, rather than trying to find out if I have a developer who spent a day here or there, that's actually not the point!”.

When Indexia started looking for what tools existed, they shortlisted two or three. “We continued with AirSaaS because we had the opportunity to do a POC very easily.” In addition to pre-sales feedback, our witness tells us: ”We are felt very well accompanied and we perceived that they wanted it to work, thatthey were passionate about their subject !”

What's your favorite feature?

”I like it a lot decision-making and attention points. Because until now, when we had this type of need, we sent an email or we had a meeting.”.

Very often, operating by e-mail did not generate accurate feedback, and therefore no decision-making. Likewise, the meeting did not necessarily have the minimum quorum of people present.

Sylvain tells us that now, He starts all his business meetings by connecting to AirSaaS and filtering all the decisions and points of attention affected and waiting... Before today's topic!

“The fact of being able to trace that in a project there is a need for decision-making before a certain date, that this person must make the decision and that it is organizational, financial or other type of person simplifies governance. Being able to “log” decisions into a project is magical! ”

How do you calculate the ROI of Airsaas?

As a pragmatic CIO, Sylvain confirms this to us. “It's not a question we asked ourselves in these terms. Common sense allows you to tell yourself that the tool brings good things in light of a bill that is not excessive... I'm not even trying to calculate an ROI”, the results are there!”.

A new AirSaaS feature that you would like in the future?

“What would be great... is to have a feature that allows business departments or users to vote on projects.”

The idea is to allow contributors to argue by saying:”This project contributes to turnover. This one contributes to such and such a company objective, this one contributes 2 stars... It would be interesting to allow voting. To have a scoring established in some way, to be carried out prior to the steering meetings.”

Based on this consultation, Sylvain plans to hold a business management meeting during which he could share the results of the votes. This would give an initial idea of global prioritization.

A feature that is reminiscent of agile games such as poker planning and buy me a feature.

Mini bio

DSI always on the move. Sylvain Bourdette has twenty years of experience in the IT world. A path from developer to DSI. A position he held for about ten years in the telecommunications field, in particular at SFR and Numéricâble.
Currently, he is the DSI Group of Indexia, a company specialized in the distribution of affinity insurance.
Rock climbing enthusiast, he applies a maxim on a daily basis: “foresee the unforeseeable and manage the unexpected”.